Re: Boycott of Olympics
My two cents:
Sure, it's alright to hate the government of China, but do you have any right to deprive 1.3 billion 'oppressed' people of the right to hold the Olympics? Furthermore, what about those athletes who've trained for 4 years of their lives?
Which country doesn't deploy riot police when people start burning shops, looting, and killing innocent bystanders, including both Han Chinese and Tibetans? I wouldn't trust the heavy spin any bullshit Western media would feed to me these day. You always have to takes matters of moral relativity with a grain of salt before you jump on the 'FREE TIBET' bandwagon.
Moreover, how many of you actually give a shit about the average Tibetan? Methinks it's more of a chance for moral posturing and hypocrisy. Why doesn't poverty created by corruption in Africa get more attention? FREE AFRICA FROM POVERTY AND CORRUPTION? The Tibetans may be religiously suppressed, but at least they're not starving to death in droves....
Cultural genocide? Hah. Don't make me laugh. Monastaries still exist. The culture still exists, and I don't think it's in any precarious position of being wiped out anytime soon. Practically, the Chinese government probably sees more value in giving cultural freedom to maintain ethnic appeasement, as long as there's no CIA-backed undertones of seccionism which the Dalai Lama has been giving out. You don't see the Chinese army just roll up in trucks, Nazi-style, pulling the poor Tibetans out of their houses, sending them to concentration camps, and exterminating them all, do you? Sure, a few may go to jail on unreasonable grounds, but isn't that the same for dissidents all over China? Would you feel the same overblown sympathy for dissident Chinese as well? Such is the one-dimensional, self-righteous, hypocritical morality FREE TIBET people have..... Moral high grounds are hard to find in an indifferent and immoral world these days...yet some people pretend to have one to give lip service to their self-righteous egos.
Anyway, I think Americans should all jump into the sea. Because they colonalised the poor, brave, spiritually enlightened American Indians. Same for the Israelis who just walked into the Middle East and felt like starting a country because it was their self-proclaimed Holy Land. FREE THE APACHE AND THE CHEROKEE AND THE PALESTINIANS AND ABORIGINES WHATEVER OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE COURSE OF HUMAN HISTORY THAT HAVE BEEN INVADED AND POORLY TREATED BY ANOTHER RACE *joking* If the world actually worked like that, I would be astounded. Because every country acts in its own self-interest. Now I know some of you people would say that native people have been delivered a high standard of living and rights. But what about alcholism, gambling and whatever that's so prolific in Aboriginal and Native Indian communities? Ethnic marginalisation is bound to occur whenever one race dominates another. Get over it.
Here's an extract from the Kentucky Kernel:
"What bothers me more is the self-righteous Westerners' failure to examine themselves in the same light. One cannot dispute that China has a shaky record on human rights, but one would be equally ignorant to say that the West, particularly the United States, has a human rights record to be proud of.
Currently, the United States and the rest of the "coalition forces" remain in Iraq, locked in a five-year-old war that, if presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain has his way in the election, may last another 100 years.
According to a September 2007 survey by Opinion Research Business, the estimated total number of war casualties in Iraq since the 2003 invasion exceeded 1.2 million. Reports of U.S. soldiers and mercenaries committing atrocious crimes surface regularly, yet the so-called human rights advocates don't seem to care.
One doesn't hear calls to investigate the United States' handling of the war and the staggering civilian casualties, yet riots in Tibet can raise overwhelming sympathy and finger-pointing from the West. It's safe to say that Beijing doesn't have the patent to hypocrisy.
Countries act in their self-interests. Sometimes such acts are controversial, and often one country's self-interest conflicts with others'. China is no exception, but at least it doesn't cry foul at the first news a controversy emerges in another country. The West should do the same."
